Benjamin Franklin [1760
ings, rents, and the value of land and of the produce
of land; even if he goes back no farther than is within
man’s memory. Let him compare those countries
with others on the same island, where manufactures
have not yet extended themselves; observe the
present difference, and reflect how much greater our
strength may be, if numbers give strength, when our
manufactures shall occupy every part of the island
where they can possibly be subsisted.
But, say the objectors, “there is a certain distance
from the sea, in America, beyond which the expense
of carriage will put a stop to the sale and consumption
 of your manufactures; and this, with the difficulty
 of making returns for them, will oblige the inhabitants
 to manufacture for themselves; of course,
if you suffer your people to extend their settlements
 beyond that distance, your people become
useless to you’’; and this distance is limited by some
to two hundred miles, by others to the Appalachian
mountains.
Not to insist on a plain truth, that no part of a
dominion from whence a government may on occasion
 draw supplies and aids both of men and money
(though at too great a distance to be supplied with
manufactures from some other part) is therefore to
be deemed useless to the whole, I shall endeavour to
show that these imaginary limits of utility, even in
point of commerce, are much too narrow. The inland
 parts of the continent of Europe are farther
from the sea than the limits of settlement proposed
for America. Germany is full of tradesmen and
artificers of all kinds, and the governments there,

40